Before I can reply, Penny screeches into the hall. “Where are you going?”
“Home?”
“You don’t have to go,” she blurts, grabbing my hand and dragging me back inside the apartment. “Dinner’s ready. And I set the table for three. Please stay.”
She gives me her best puppy dog face. She’s terrifyingly good at it.
I look at Lily with a question in my eyes.
She shrugs. “We won’t eat an entire roasted chicken by ourselves.”
I nod and let Penny tow me toward the kitchen, the empty space I’d braced for already impossibly full. We eat together, chat, I listen to Penny’s school stories, she asks for some of my best rescues. And for one night, I can pretend we could be a family. That I could stay after the meal ends, tuck Penny in bed and read her a bedtime story. And then wipe that lipstick off Lily’s lips with my own. Take her down the hall to what would be our room. Make love until we both passed out and do it all over the next day. Yeah, it’s a good dream. Just not mine to keep.
21
LILY
Two weeks have passed since Josh came over to have his stitches removed and stayed for dinner like it was normal. It wasn’t, but we didn’t say that out loud, giving us the perfect excuse for it to happen again, and again. We ate together almost every night he hasn’t been on a shift, or that Penny and I haven’t been out. Like tonight.
We’re at Dorian’s place for our weekly family dinner. These used to happen at Mom’s, but once Josie and Dorian went public, it became simpler to gather beyond gated walls where the paparazzi can’t crowd the curb.
The private chef doesn’t hurt, either. Not that Mom is ready to hand over her wooden spoon. She arrives early to cook alongside Alfred, the chef. So now our meals retain that homemade, familiar quality, but with a finish a judge on a cooking show would call “elevated.”
The stars above Dorian’s infinity pool glitter across the black velvet expanse of the sky. Brighter here than anywhere else in LA, like even the cosmos gives celebrities preferential treatment.
I take a sip of wine that costs more than my weekly grocery budget, wondering how sipping Opus One on the patio of a rockstar’s mansion for family dinner became my new normal.
Dorian’s hand rests on the back of Josie’s chair, his thumb absently stroking her shoulder like he can’t help touching her. My sister’s face glows in the ambient lighting that some professional designer no doubt spent hours perfecting. And I am so happy for her, but tonight, the absence of a man by my side who can’t keep his hands off me is harder to bear. Maybe because for once, there’s someone I’d want around—even if I’m not able to make space for him.
I’m not the only one thinking about Josh. Penny finishes another of her stories, and I lose count of how many times she mentioned him tonight.
“—and then Josh said that if I beat him at Marco Polo next time, he’ll let me pick the movie for our next pizza night,” my daughter explains, waving her fork for emphasis. A piece of broccoli flies off and lands somewhere in the decorative shrubbery.
In the last couple of weeks, we’ve started orbiting each other in these little routines. Josh always a text away from showing up with some obscure ingredient he swears will change the way we eat forever, or calling to ask Penny if she wants to help him on one of his handyman side projects, fixing Mrs. Patel’s wobbly ceiling fan or adjusting Mrs. Porter’s stubborn sliding glass door that kept getting stuck.
“Who is this Josh?” my mom asks, eyes dancing to me.
I spear a glazed carrot, letting Penny take this one.
“Our new neighbor. We played on Saturday,” Penny continues, oblivious to the adult subtext swirling around her. My family has the subtlety of a marching band. “Josh showed me how to do a cannonball that makes the biggest splash.”
I focus on my plate, avoiding eye contact with everyone at the table, glad they don’t know Saturday didn’t end with a casual encounter by our complex’s pool. That afterward we went for a spontaneous trip to Penny’s favorite ice cream place in Venice that led to us strolling down the Ocean Front Walk for hours, Penny darting between street performers and souvenir stalls, Josh buying her a ridiculous pair of heart-shaped sunglasses, the three of us huddling at some hole-in-the-wall burger joint on the beach for dinner.
I also hope Penny won’t blabber how after dinner, I got roped into agreeing to taking a camping trip together. All it took was Josh mentioning he sometimes misses the woods. Penny saying she’s never been camping. And I was outnumbered two to one to plan the adventure. We’ll go in three weeks when Josh has a full weekend off in his work schedule rotation.
I love to hike, but am not overnight-outdoorsy. I wouldn’t feel safe doing it alone. And I want Penny to have these experiences, especially now, with her class doing that entire unit on ecosystems and California wildlife. She came home last week, vibrating with questions about nocturnal animals and how to identify constellations, holding up her science workbook like it was a treasure. How could I not let her enjoy the real thing when the opportunity presented itself?
It made sense to say yes. Practical sense. Educational sense.
Two full days and a night with Josh? That’s… manageable. We’ll sleep in separate tents—I made that clear immediately, maybe too emphatically, judging by the flicker of amusement in Josh’s eyes. Ground rules established. Boundaries maintained. This isn’t some romantic getaway; it’s a camping trip with a kid present. There’s nothing intimate about s’mores and bug spray.
Except.
Except it is bigger than our usual hangouts. Those come with endpoints, natural moments when we say goodnight and retreat to our separate apartments, separate lives. Camping means waking up in adjacent tents, morning breath, and messy hair, no escape route if things get too comfortable or too complicated. Josh will teach Penny how to build a fire while I prep dinner, the three of us crammed around a picnic table like we’re… a unit.
A family doing what families do.
I told myself I’d be more cautious after that first weekend, after I realized how easily Josh slipped under my defenses. And I have been careful. Every time I’ve gotten too close, I’ve pulled back, recalibrated, reminded myself why this can’t be more than friendship. But Penny’s disappointed face when I hesitate, Josh’s easy “no pressure” that makes me want to say yes more—I’m tired of being the person who always says no to everything.
